With the changing of seasons comes an opportunity to reinvent ourselves! But it doesn't have to be costly or overly complicated. We can start where we are, using what we already have. That means sifting through our accessories and wardrobe to mix and match pieces to create looks that surprise and inspire even us! It helps to go through this process with a friend because we're already conditioned to see our clothes a certain way. This is what happened when my bff, Dani G., who also happens to be a stylist, came over and showed me that I have what it takes to be fun and fabulous this Fall! What do you have in your wardrobe?

Whoever said getting to know someone was fun, glossed over the beginning stages. Getting to know someone is a long term process. In fact, it is never ending. The first few dates are like making it to Wednesday, we’re just trying to get over the hump. As a young woman feeling stuck in ‘forever single’ status, dating becomes boring. I’ve gone on unoriginal dates just to answer the same questions over and over like a trash song on repeat. I know some questions need to be asked because there are important things we should know about someone, but we could get to the point quicker by asking more direct questions and leaving some irrelevant ones in the past. So to keep you from beating a dead horse on your next date, here are 7 Questions To Leave At Home.

Choosing your next hairstyle can be tricky. You obviously want something that is stylish and easy to care for, but you probably also want a look that will last a few weeks. When it comes to these 5 inexpensive ways to freshen your hairstyle, make your look go the extra mile without spending a lot of money.

Right now, as you read these words, you are imagining your limitations. You forgot that you are just pretending to be ‘too shy’, ‘not ready yet’, ‘not smart enough’, ‘not witty enough’, ‘not free’, ‘not love-able’, ‘unworthy’, ‘lacking’.

In the black community, mental health is not an issue that’s commonly discussed. It is either treated as something that doesn’t exist or as white people problems. The result is that many black people suffer in silence or aren't aware that they have mental health issues, which can lead them to believe that they're making a big deal out of nothing. That’s what I used to tell myself too, a few years back. Now, I can see that what I was going through was not normal.

3 years later, my journey of faith and international service is still going. After serving in the slums of India and working with girls who were rescued from sex trafficking, I had the desire to get a masters in International Development Studies (with a focus on Violence and Conflict). My aim was to gain a deeper understanding of some of the systemic issues behind poverty and violence in developing countries with hopes to be equipped to serve countries at a greater level. Well I applied to SOAS, University of London and was accepted! I left India and went straight to London to complete my 1 year masters.

“I felt like I was hit by a mack truck,” says Kimberly Durdin, describing her disappointment over having to get a C-section with her first child some 25 years ago. She was planning to give birth with midwives at a hospital, but because her baby was breech, it meant an automatic C-section. A few years passed and when she became pregnant with her second child, she knew she didn’t want to go back to a hospital for fear of another C-section. However, midwives at birthing centers where she lived in Brooklyn, were forbidden from working with her because it posed too much of a risk. Finally, someone referred her to a home midwife named Tioma Allison because they weren’t governed by the same rules. After one interview with Tioma, Kimberly was convinced that it was the way to go. And after reading her story, you might want to consider it too.

Let me start by saying that I don’t know the first thing about Qüeen Sugar. Other than Kofi Siriboe is fine and Retina Wesley and I acted in a scene together in the movie ‘Hitch’ with Will Smith and got edited out. The first time I watched Queen Sugar I fell asleep. And I’m not proud of that. I love Ava DuVernay. I’ve seen all her movies, including the documentary ‘13th, which should be required viewing. I love her slow pace storytelling, attention to detail, and sensuality. Unfortunately, Queen Sugar lacked drama. HOWEVER, things changed faster than #45’s stance on everything when I read Ava DuVernay’s interview with Buzzfeed. In it she talked about her most recent plot twist. Just wow.

Yesterday evening, TMZcaught
up with Towanda, Traci, and Trina Braxton in a California airport. The
sisters told the cameraman that they were on their way to be with their
sister Tamar after she recently filed for divorce from her husband of
nine years, Vincent Herbert.
Earlier reports claimed that Vince and Tamar’s marriage took a hit
when she was fired from “The Real.” But according to her sisters, that
was not the case at all. They allege that they’ve been having problems
for years and the finger-biting incident from 2016 was not the first.

It's been weeks since Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria hit the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) - St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John. While the relief efforts have been organized, the conditions are still disastrous. With no electricity, no water and a tremendous lack of daily necessities, residents are in distress, but one Atlanta businessman is doing his part to shine a light of hope and help save the day! He is Will Jones - an entrepreneur, tech influencer, lifestyle architect and television personality. While he may be the newest addition to the upcoming season of Bravo's Real Housewives of Atlanta, it's the work he's doing off-camera and behind the scenes that's making the most noise.

By Nicole Bourn
Carefully choosing what to buy is something almost everyone has been
through at some stage of their life. We all need to find a way of eating
healthy and vegan on a budget until we have enough money to not care as
much.
There's a very common misunderstanding of healthy,
plant-based food being exceptionally expensive. This might stem from the
idea that we have to buy expensive supplements, powders, superfoods or
vegan meat and dairy substitutes in order to sustain this lifestyle.
These
things can be nice to have but aren't really necessary to thrive and be
healthy. If you strip it down to the basics, you will find that the
whole food plant based lifestyle can actually be dirt cheap and easily
affordable for anyone. With a little bit of knowledge, a healthy
diet bursting with taste and nutrients will fit your budget even if you
have to count every penny. The following 14 tips will get you the most bang for your buck!

The other day I was explaining to my 6-year-old daughter why a friend’s dog had been humping her leg, and the next thing you know it turned into a talk about where babies come from. Though I managed to keep it simple enough to satisfy her curiosity, I know that she’ll be back. As I start contemplating what I will say, it occurs to me that unlike my mom who was a single parent and had to have the sex talk with me and my brother, I have a husband. So what part will he play?Continue

By Winnie Gaturu
There are tons of amazing cornrow styles online, especially on Pinterest and YouTube. The problem is, the style might not turn out the way you pictured it once you get it done. The truth is, you might fall in love with a particular style and have it replicated by your hair stylist only to have less than pleasing results. It's happened to most of us, but it doesn't always have to go the wrong way. Here are some tips to help you nail those cornrows you saw online and look like a million bucks.Continue

A few days ago a close friend showed me a screenshot of a few flirtatious comments on a picture of her boyfriend on instagram. When she asked my opinion on whether or not she should say something to him, I chose not to get involved. But it did make me think…. so, I took a census with some of my peers, 6 women and 6 men, ages 21 to 45 years old, married, single and in a relationship, and asked “How does social media influence your relationship? Here’s how it played out.

By Nikki Igbo Trust me; you know Robin Thede. Even if you never saw her on the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore or Key and Peele or Difficult People, you’ve heard her jokes and experienced her genius writing. She’s written for the BET Awards for forever as well as the NAACP Image Awards, the BET Honors, the Queen Latifah Show and Real Husbands of Hollywood. Finally the Northwestern University graduate and Second City alumni has her own show featuring her signature in-your-face, unapologetically Black, and unapologetically feminine take on current events. Since its première on BET on October 12, the Rundown with Robin Thede has been such a necessary late night attraction. Just in case you haven’t set a reminder for yourself to tune in every week, here are seven reasons why you should.

Looking for a conditioner that will leave your natural hair soft, curls defined and scalp feeling fresh like a morning breeze? Here's natural hair lover CurlyGaisha's secret home remedy that will surely give you the results you want and then some!

“You can’t have more cookies until you work off that pudge! Your sister already lost hers. But you think you’re going to sit around here and get fat,” says my friend to her little girl. She puts her head down. She’s seven years old. Her sister is three. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard my friend blasting her girls about their weight. The first time was right after Thanksgiving, and the difference was that both my friend and her husband were calling them ‘Pudgy.’ The crazy part is, I think they’re a normal size for kids. But even if they were pudgy or obese, what’s with the fat shaming?Continue

Let's face it, not all of us have time to put on a full face of makeup on a daily basis. However, this doesn't mean that you can't still look good. I'm certain you've seen many Instagram models looking awesome even with "no makeup" on. Well, the truth is, even though they don't have their usual makeup on, they still do something to give their face a glow. You can do it too. It only takes seven minutes or less and it doesn't require foundation. Let's get right to it!

I hate the silent treatment. Always have. You wanna really piss me off? Stop talking to me. It’s like cutting off my lifeline. I love to talk. Do you know that every five minutes the universe expands by 46 miles? Let’s talk about it. I talk so much my husband sometimes begs me to stop. But I can’t. Talking about what you’re going to do is the next best thing to doing it. And don’t all spiritual gurus say talk it into fruition? Like I said, I love to talk. So when my husband wouldn’t talk to me for a week I thought I would lose my mind.

Every time I see my beautiful black queens with long, straight hair weave I take a sigh. Their beauty is undeniable. Let’s get that out of the way, first. But it’s not the hair. It’s the skin tone. Dark skin is majestic, regal and refined. There’s a presence to it. But it gets covered up with excessive hair. Sometimes I want to scream, "Give White people, Asians, and Indians back their hair- We Don't Need It!”

Looking for a kid/teen friendly way to straighten natural hair using a silk wrap? Look no further than this video tutorial by beauty & lifestyle vlogger She'kia Renea! Here she breaks down everything you need to know for how to achieve a bone-straight look on natural hair!

You’d
imagine that having a first for a black woman would be rare in 2017 but
it’s not. There are black women breaking barriers everyday all around
us. Whether it's in school, work, politics or in seemingly normal
activities, there are firsts happening everywhere. Since it is human
nature to admire people you can identify with, it is crucial for black
women, especially young girls, to see black women making major
achievements in life. Each first opens a new door we never thought of
opening. It motivates black women and shows us that we can all be
firsts. Right now, we celebrate some of the women who've paved the way
for us in many different ways. Here are 10 black women’s firsts in
2017!

It was 8:30 a.m. and I was standing at a bus stop in Valencia, Spain, trying to figure out why Autobús 41 wasn’t running that day. With signage in a foreign language and Google Translate failing on me due to shoddy cellular service, it took every ounce of my being to fight the urge to go home to watch old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix rather than figure out how to get to my intended destination. The observance of a Spanish holiday changed the regular bus schedule, and my language school didn’t inform students of this holiday since it didn’t affect the school’s schedule. However, it did affect almost everything else, like operating hours at government offices, the post office, and shops around the city. Once I realized that the bus wasn’t coming, I was forced to decide if I should take the 30-minute walk to school to face four grueling hours of Spanish lessons or call it quits on a day that had barely started.

When it comes to hairstyles that make life easier, braids are a top choice. They look great, last for weeks, and protect strands from damage. When it comes to care, some curlies are confused about washing braided hair. Let’s break down the basic and put your mind at ease.

If you’ve ever seen Hope Boykin dance onstage, you’ve witnessed modern dance at its finest. For 18 years, the North Carolina native has been giving us the ‘theatrical experience’ that has made the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
one of the most celebrated dance companies in the world. As the eldest
company member, Hope is a throwback to Alvin Ailey’s early days, when
pioneers like renowned dancer and Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison, a woman she greatly admires and considers a mentor, told stories from their toes to their fingertips.

One Sunday afternoon, when I was 16 years old, I had a random-yet-intuitive premonition. I looked at my then-months old little cousin in her bassinet and thought to myself “My first child is going to be a little girl,” as my grandmother weaved cornrows into my teenage scalp.

I didn’t give the credence much thought until a decade later. My long-time girlfriend was in her first trimester and we conversed about the gender of our first child. Without hesitation, I told her we were having a daughter and I wanted to be the kind of father that did her hair.Continue

My friends and family asked if I was nervous about traveling to South
Africa with my boyfriend to meet his family over Christmas. I wasn’t.
What I was anxious about was getting there, which involved 28
hours of travel, including a nine-hour layover in Saudi Arabia before
heading to Johannesburg.During the long layover, we watched TV shows my boyfriend had downloaded and slept, and I spent a good hour crying to The Color Purple (New Broadway Cast Recording). When it was time to board the plane, I was actually surprised that the time had passed so quickly.

It was 25 years ago, and just a few months before he died from complications from AIDS, that tennis champion Arthur Ashe created the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health. He realized that African Americans were dying from preventable diseases like HIV/AIDS, and others, and to change that, he had a vision to get health information to the heart of African American communities. That is how 'Barber Shop Talk With Brothers' was created.

With the news of BET cancelling Being Mary Jane, and the series finale to be a 2-hour movie, it’s hard not to wonder, what happened? Why did such an empowering show fall on its knees, so to speak? The main issue that comes to mind is the writing.

If you are Christian (or were raised Christian) and interested in meditation, this is an amazing place to start. It's hands down one of my all time favorite books and I've read more than 300 in this 'genre'.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” French impressionist artist Edgar Degas once made this statement and it could not be truer when considering the contributions of visual artists throughout history. Visual artists, through their work, clarify, expose, underscore and inform in ways that transcend age, ethnicity, language and time. Think Jean Michel Basquiat, Kara Walker, Romare Bearden and Elizabeth Catlett—all African-American artists whose work still speaks volumes and has great influence. The following 7 African-American artists are taking the baton from these artistic giants and running us all into a new age of beautiful and much-needed expression.

Despite the fact that Colin Kaepernick has become a household name whether a football fan or not, it’s amazing how most people don’t really know the former 49er quarterback’s background. Besides leading what can be easily described as the civil rights and social justice fight of current times, Kaepernick is pretty badass in general. Here are seven interesting facts about the kneeling freedom fighter.

The juice craze is at full-force with today’s health conscious crowd. With more and more people worried about getting the right nutrients into their busy day, juicing is a great way to guarantee a healthy intake of vitamins, fatty acids, and other essential elements. There are sure signs that juicing can be beneficial to your health, but what about your hair? Do certain juices help hair grow faster? Let’s take a look at this hot topic.

While many Black women across the globe are embracing their natural
kinky and coily texture, there is one thing that they still want to be
sleek and straight: their edges. Of course there are no shortage of edge
control options (this one by Creme of Nature is a favorite), but many are finding that they need a little extra assistance.

So the other day I came across an article by a psychotherapist and author who discussed the hidden dangers of ‘shake it off’ parenting. She uses the term to describe parents who tell kids to shake it off when they get hurt, and describes an incident that happened when her six-year-old son got hit in the head with a soccer ball during a game. When the boy came over to her in tears, another mom screamed, “Shake it off! We need you back out there.”

Some mother-daughter relationships form relatively easily and only grow more resilient over time into an unbreakable bond of understanding, love, and respect for one another. But the more common truth is that mother-daughter relationships can be difficult—and that’s an understatement. From infancy to adulthood, entire complicated histories are formed between a mother and her daughter and the truth is: navigating those waters can prove difficult.

I laugh uncomfortably because though I know she’s showing some knee, I’d never call her sexy. She’s cute. Kids are cute. They’re not doing anything to warrant sexual attention. My daughter looks at me confused because we’ve had conversations about the word “sexy” in the past, and I tell her that it’s only for adults. Now she’s wondering if she is sexy because that’s what the neighbor just told her.Once she leaves, I immediately begin lecturing my daughter on how people are different, but “sexy” is still a word that should never be used on kids.

A week before Thanksgiving in 2014, we celebrated my brother and sister’s joint birthdays with a party. Somewhere between the dancing, the drinks and cutting the cake, my big sister casually mentioned that she hadn’t been feeling well and google had told her that she probably had colon cancer. I rolled my eyes and thought she was being dramatic. Everybody knows that Doctors despise google and the self-diagnosis it brings. I told her to make the appointment to ease her fears and I would accompany her. At 41 it was an uphill battle to get a colonoscopy scheduled because she was young and female. Routine screenings are not recommended for adults under 50 and colon cancer has been more common in males historically. A month later, I was in the waiting room scrolling my timelines when the doctor came out to inform me of the cancer he had found in my sister’s colon and the surgery he had to perform right away. She had Stage 3 colon cancer.

"You can’t ask the sun to shine because the sun is shining; but you can bring yourself into that sunshine. Once you bring yourself into that sunshine, you don’t have to ask for qualities of sun, whether it’s sun tan or whether it’s warmth. Automatically being embodied or included in that sunshine, all that the sun is acts upon and through our being.

In the same way, then, to entertain a sense of separation from God is to deprive one’s self of all the blessing, benediction, activity, presence and power of God. To come consciously into the awareness, the actual feeling, realization, click of God’s presence is automatically to bring that presence and power into our experience. And so you see why you must rise above the sea of thought because thinking won’t make this so. You must rise above the sea of thought into an actual consciousness, an actual awareness, an actual feeling of God’s presence. Then all things are added.

In the Western world, it is considered right to pray or do mental work for things, conditions, circumstances, and, to me, that would be very much like sitting here (in this room) and praying for sun tan or sun warmth. And I would sit here forever and forever and forever, and I would not have them. Why? Because there is no such thing as the warmth of the sun or the sun tan separate and apart from the sun itself. So if I only will stop praying long enough for warmth and tan and get out in the sun, I’ll have the warmth and I’ll have the tan without asking for them. They’ll be there of their own accord.--Joel Goldsmith

“For the longest time, when I would show up places people would expect to see an Asian woman, not a black man,” says my friendSekou, one day in conversation. It's been argued for years that the ancient Japanese
migrated from Africa, so why not? Now I'm thinking about African
Americans with African names, and how their experience must differ from the rest of us. I do a Google search to read up on the topic and there's nada. Guess I gotta research it myself...Continue

I waited for this?That was the thought that ran through my head as my then-husband climbed off of me, unaware of the disappointment that was building up inside. For almost 25 years, I had held on to my prized possession, dodging advances from guys who I knew only wanted to get in between my thighs in hopes of finding “the one” who not only loved it, but loved me too. While many people no longer believe in celibacy and abstinence, I was raised in a family that valued conservative morals and grew up in the church, which often preaches waiting until marriage for sex. I did not really date throughout high school because most boys I met focused on sex, which I wasn’t interested in. I wanted love.Continue

Styling your hair is key to looking and feeling your best every day. If you have short curly hair, you may be experiencing some roadblocks in your hair journey. Whether you recently big chopped, went short to make your routine easier, or just prefer rocking a short cut, there are a few things you should know to help you get your best look. Here are 5 styling tips for short naturally curly hair.

Life is made up of the little things, the little moments, seemingly mundane-- like waiting in line, scrolling through your feed, walking to the car, getting up from the couch, preparing a meal, or driving to the store.

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